The Word Is Murder

Eight Damaged Goods

One of my favourite screenwriters is Nigel Kneale, the inventor of the eccentric Professor Quatermass. He wrote a chilling television play, The Stone Tape, which suggested that the very fabric of a house, the bricks and mortar, might be able to absorb and ‘play back’ the various emotions, including the horrors, that it had witnessed. I was reminded of it as I entered the Godwins’ home on Roxborough Avenue. It was an expensive house. Any property of this size in Harrow-on-the-Hill would have been worth a couple of million pounds. And yet the hall was cold – colder perhaps than it was outside – and poorly lit. It was crying out for redecoration. The carpets were a little threadbare with too many stains. There was a sense of something in the air that might have been damp or dry rot but was actually just misery, recorded and re-recorded until the memory bank was full.

The door had been opened by a woman in her fifties. She would have been about ten or fifteen years younger than Diana Cowper at the time of her death. She looked at us suspiciously, as if we had come to sell her something; in fact her entire body language was defensive. This was Judith Godwin. I could easily imagine her working for a charity. She had a brittle quality, as if she needed charity herself, but knew that she would never get it. The tragedy that had changed her life was still with her. When she asked you for help or for money it would always be personal.

‘You’re Hawthorne?’ she asked.

‘It’s very good to meet you.’ Hawthorne actually sounded as if he meant it and I saw that he had undergone another of his transformations. He had been hard with Andrea Kluvánek, coldly matter-of-fact with Raymond Clunes but now it was a polite and accommodating Hawthorne who presented himself to Judith Godwin. ‘Thank you for seeing us.’

‘Would you like to come into the kitchen? I’ll make us some coffee.’

Hawthorne hadn’t explained who I was and nor did she seem interested. We followed her into a room on the other side of the stairs. The kitchen was warmer but it was also drab and dated. It’s funny how much white goods tell you about a house and its owners. The fridge would have been expensive when it was installed but that was too long ago. The panels had a yellowy sheen, pockmarked with magnets and old Post-it notes containing recipes, telephone numbers, emergency addresses. The oven was greasy and the dishwasher worn out with overuse. There was a washing machine, grinding slowly round, murky water lapping at the window. The room was clean and tidy but it needed money spent on it. A Weimaraner with mangy fur and a grey muzzle lay half-asleep in the corner but thumped its tail as we came in.

Hawthorne and I sat down at an uncomfortably large pine table while Judith Godwin plucked a percolator out of the sink, washed it under the tap and set about making coffee. She talked to us as she worked. I could see she was the sort of woman who never did just one thing at a time. ‘You wanted to talk to me about Diana Cowper.’

‘I assume you’ve spoken to the police.’

‘Very briefly.’ She went to the fridge and took out a plastic carton of milk, sniffed it, dumped it on the counter. ‘They telephoned me. They asked me if I had seen her.’

‘And had you?’

She turned round, her eyes defiant. ‘Not in ten years.’ Again, she busied herself, now putting biscuits on a plate. ‘Why would I want to see her? Why would I want to go anywhere near her?’

Hawthorne shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you’d have been too sorry to hear she had died.’

Judith Godwin stopped what she was doing. ‘Mr Hawthorne. Who exactly did you say you were?’

‘I’m helping the police. This is a very delicate matter and obviously there are all sorts of ramifications. So they called me in.’

‘You’re a private detective?’

‘A consultant.’

‘And your friend?’

‘I’m working with him,’ I said. It was simple and true and begged no further questions.

‘Are you suggesting I killed her?’

‘Not at all.’

‘You’re asking if I saw her. You’re suggesting I’m glad she’s dead.’ The kettle had boiled. She hurried over to flick it off. ‘Well, on that second point, I am. She destroyed my life. She destroyed my family’s life. One second behind the wheel of a car she shouldn’t have been driving and she killed my child and took everything away from me. I’m a Christian. I go to church. I’ve tried to forgive her. But I’d be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t glad when I heard someone had murdered her. It may be a sin and it may be wrong of me but it’s nothing less than she deserved.’

I watched her make the coffee in silence. She attacked the percolator, the mugs and the milk jug as if she was taking out her anger on them. She carried a tray over to the table and sat down opposite us. ‘What else do you want to know?’ she demanded.

‘I want to know everything you can tell us,’ Hawthorne said. ‘Why don’t you start with the accident?’

‘The accident? You’re talking about what happened to my two sons in Deal.’ She smiled briefly, bitterly. ‘It’s such a simple word, isn’t it. An accident. It’s like when you spill the milk or bump into another car. I was in town when they rang me and that’s what they said. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident.” And even then I thought that maybe something had happened at the house or at work. I didn’t think that my Timmy was lying in the morgue and that my other boy was never going to have a normal life.’

‘Why weren’t you with them?’

‘I was at a conference. I was working for Shelter at the time and there was a two-day event in Westminster. My husband was in Manchester on a business trip.’ She paused. ‘We’re not together any more. You can blame that on the accident too. It was half-term and we decided to send the boys on a trip with their nanny. She took them to the coast, to Deal. The hotel had a special offer. That’s the only reason we chose it. The boys couldn’t have been more excited. Castles and beaches and the tunnels up at Ramsgate. Timmy had a wonderful imagination. Everything in his life was an adventure.’

She poured three cups of coffee. She left us to add the sugar and the milk.

‘Mary, the nanny, had been with us for just over a year and she was absolutely wonderful. We trusted her completely – and although we went over and over what had happened, we never thought for a minute that it was her fault. The police and all the witnesses agreed. She’s still with us now.’

‘She looks after Jeremy?’

‘Yes.’ Judith let the word hang in the air. ‘She felt responsible,’ she went on. ‘When Jeremy finally came out of hospital, she found she couldn’t leave him. And so she stayed.’ Another pause. She had to make an effort to revisit the past. ‘The three of them had been on the beach. They’d been paddling. It was a nice day but it wasn’t warm enough to swim. The road runs right next to the beach. There’s just a low sea wall and a promenade. The children saw an ice-cream shop and although Mary shouted out to them, they ran across. I’ve never understood why they did that. They were only eight years old but they usually had more sense.

‘Even so, Mrs Cowper should have been able to stop. She had plenty of time. But she wasn’t wearing her glasses and she just ploughed right into them. As we discovered later, she could barely see from one side of the road to the other. She shouldn’t have been driving. And as a result, Timmy was killed immediately. Jeremy was flung into the air. He had terrible head injuries but he survived.’

‘Mary wasn’t hurt?’

‘She was very lucky. She had run forward to grab hold of the boys. The car missed her by inches. This all came out in the trial, Mr Hawthorne. Mrs Cowper didn’t stop. Later on, she told the police that she had panicked, but you have to ask yourself what sort of woman does that, leaving two children in the road!’

‘She went home to her son.’

‘That’s right. Damian Cowper. He’s quite a well-known actor now and he was staying with her at the time. The Crown lawyers said that she was trying to protect him, that she didn’t want his name dragged into the press. If that’s true, then the two of them are as bad as each other. Anyway, she turned herself in later that same day – but only because she had no choice. There were lots of witnesses and she knew that her number plate had been seen. You’d have thought the judge would have taken that into consideration when it came to sentencing but it didn’t seem to make any difference. She walked free.’

She picked up the plate of biscuits and offered me one. ‘No, thank you,’ I said, at the same time thinking how bizarre it was that she should manage to do something so homely, so banal, in the middle of such a conversation. But I guessed that was how she was. She had lived the last ten years in the shadow of what had happened in Deal until, for her, it had become the new normality. It was as if she had been locked up in a lunatic asylum for so long that she had forgotten she was actually mad.

‘I know this is painful for you, Mrs Godwin,’ Hawthorne said. ‘But when exactly did you and your husband split up?’

‘It’s not painful, Mr Hawthorne. It’s actually the opposite. I’m not sure I’ve felt anything since I answered the telephone that day. I think that’s what this sort of thing does to you. You go to work. Or you go to visit friends. Or maybe you’re having a lovely holiday and everything seems to be completely perfect and then something like this happens and a sort of disbelief kicks in. I never actually believed it. Even when I was at Timmy’s funeral, I kept on waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and tell me to wake up. You see, I had two gorgeous twins. The boys were just perfect in every way. I was happily married. Alan’s business was going well. We’d just bought this house … the year before. You never realise how fragile everything is until it breaks. And that day it was all smashed.

‘Alan and I blamed ourselves for not being there, for letting the boys go in the first place. He was on business in Manchester. I think I told you that. There had been a certain amount of strain between us. Any marriage is difficult, particularly when you’re bringing up twins, but our marriage was never the same after we lost Timmy and although we got counselling, although we did everything we could, we had to face up to the truth, which was that it wasn’t working any more. He moved out just a few months ago, as a matter of fact. I don’t think it’s fair to say we split up though. We just couldn’t bear to be together.’

‘Can you tell me where I can find him? It might be useful to have a word.’

She scribbled on a sheet of paper and handed it to Hawthorne. ‘This is his mobile number. You can call him if you want to. He’s living in a flat in Victoria until we sell here.’ She stopped. She might not have meant to give us this information. ‘Alan’s business hasn’t gone very well recently,’ she explained. ‘We can’t keep this house up so we’re putting it on the market. We only stayed here because of Jeremy. It’s his home. Because of his injuries, we thought it was better for him to be somewhere he knew.’

Hawthorne nodded. I always knew when he was about to go on the attack. It was as if someone had waved a knife in front of his face and I had seen it reflected, for an instant, in his eyes. ‘You say you haven’t seen Diana Cowper. Do you know if your husband approached her?’

‘He didn’t tell me that he had. I can’t imagine why he would.’

‘And you weren’t anywhere near her home on Monday of last week? The day she died?’

‘I’ve already told you. No.’

Hawthorne rocked his head briefly from side to side. ‘But you were in South Kensington.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You came out of South Kensington station at half past four in the afternoon.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’ve been looking at the CCTV footage, Mrs Godwin. Are you going to deny it?’

‘Of course I’m not going to deny it. Are you telling me that’s where Diana Cowper lived?’ Hawthorne didn’t answer. ‘I had no idea. I thought she was still living in Kent. I went shopping on the King’s Road. The estate agent wants me to buy a few things for the house, to cheer it up. I went to some of the furniture shops.’

It didn’t sound very likely to me. The house was run-down and it was obvious that Judith Godwin had no money. It was the reason she was selling. Did she really think a few expensive items of furniture would make any difference?

‘Did your husband mention that he’d written to Mrs Cowper?’

‘He wrote to her? I don’t know anything about that. You’ll have to ask him.’

‘What about Jeremy?’ She stiffened when Hawthorne spoke his name, and he went on, quickly. ‘You said that he lives with you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Could he have approached her?’

She thought for a moment and I wondered if she was going to ask us to leave. But once again she was calm, matter-of-fact. ‘I’m sure you know that my son received severe injuries when he was eight years old, Mr Hawthorne. The lacerations occurred in the temporal and occipital lobes of the brain which control, respectively, memory, language and emotions and vision. He’s eighteen now, but he will never be able to have a normal life. He has a number of issues, which include short-term and working memory loss, aphasia and limited concentration. He requires and receives full-time care.’

She paused.

‘He does leave the house – but never on his own. Any suggestion that he might approach Mrs Cowper to speak to her or to do her harm is as ridiculous as it is offensive.’

‘Nonetheless,’ Hawthorne said, ‘just before she was murdered, Mrs Cowper sent a rather strange text message. If I understand her correctly, she claims to have seen your son.’

‘Then perhaps you haven’t understood her correctly.’

‘She was fairly specific. Do you know where he was last Monday?’

‘Yes, of course I know where he was. He was upstairs. He’s upstairs now. He doesn’t often leave his room and certainly never on his own.’

The door opened behind us and a young woman came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting jersey. I knew at once that this was Mary O’Brien. She somehow had the look and the manner of a nanny, with a sort of seriousness about her, thick arms crossed over her chest, a plump face, very straight black hair. She was about thirty-five, so would have been in her mid-twenties when the accident occurred.

‘I’m sorry, Judith,’ she said. Her Irish accent was immediately distinctive. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’

‘That’s all right, Mary. This is Mr Hawthorne and …’

‘Anthony,’ I said.

‘They’re asking questions about Diana Cowper.’

‘Oh.’ Mary’s face fell. Her eyes flicked back to the door. Perhaps she was wondering if she could leave. Perhaps she was wishing that she had never come in.

‘They may want to talk to you about what happened in Deal.’

Mary nodded. ‘I’ll tell you whatever it is you want to know,’ she said. ‘Although, heaven knows, I’ve gone over it a thousand times.’ She sat down at the table. She had lived here so long that she was on equal terms with Judith. She treated the house as her own. At the same time, though, Judith got up and moved to the other side of the room and I wondered if, after all, there might be some tension between them.

‘So how can I help you?’ Mary asked.

‘You can tell us what happened that day,’ Hawthorne said. ‘I know you’ve said it all before but it may help us, hearing it from you.’

‘All right.’ Mary composed herself. Judith watched from the side. ‘We’d come off the beach. I’d promised the boys they could have an ice-cream before we went back to the hotel. We were staying at the Royal Hotel, which was just a short distance away. The boys had been told never to cross the road without holding my hand and normally they never would have – but they were overtired. They weren’t thinking straight. They saw the ice-cream shop and they got excited and before I knew what had happened, they were running across.

‘I ran after them, trying to grab them. At the same time, I saw the car coming – a blue Volkswagen. I was sure it would stop. But it didn’t. Before I could reach them, the car had hit them. I saw Timothy knocked to one side and Jeremy flying through the air. I was convinced he would be the worst hurt of the two.’ She glanced at her employer. ‘I hate going over this in front of you, Judith.’

‘It’s all right, Mary. They need to know.’

‘The car came screeching to a halt. It would have been about twenty yards further up the road. I was sure the driver was going to get out but she didn’t. Instead, she suddenly accelerated and drove off down the road.’

‘Did you actually see Mrs Cowper behind the wheel?’

‘No. I only saw the back of her head and even that didn’t really register with me. I was in shock.’

‘Go on.’

‘There’s not very much more to tell. A whole crowd of people seemed to appear from nowhere very quickly. There was a chemist’s next to the ice-cream shop and the owner was the first to arrive. His name was Traverton. He was very helpful.’

‘How about the people from the ice-cream shop?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘It was closed,’ Judith said and there was a bitter quality to her voice.

‘It somehow makes it even worse that the boys hadn’t noticed,’ Mary agreed. ‘The shop was closed anyway. But there was just a small sign in the door and they hadn’t seen it.’

‘What happened next?’

‘The police arrived. An ambulance came. They took us to hospital … all three of us. All I wanted to do was ask about the boys but I wasn’t their mother and they wouldn’t tell me. I got them to call Judith … and Alan. It was only when they finally got there that I found out.’

‘How long did it take the police to find Diana Cowper?’

‘Her son drove her to the police station in Deal two hours later. She would never have got away with it. One of the witnesses had seen her registration number so they knew who the car belonged to.’

‘Did you see her again?’

Mary nodded. ‘I saw her at the trial. I didn’t speak to her.’

‘And you haven’t seen her since?’

‘No. Why would I want to? She’s the last person in the world I’d want to see.’

‘Someone murdered her last week.’

‘Are you implying I did it? That’s ridiculous. I didn’t even know where she lived.’

I didn’t believe her. It’s easy enough to find anyone’s address these days. And she was certainly hiding something. Looking at her more closely, I realised Mary O’Brien was more attractive than I had first thought. There was a freshness about her, a lack of sophistication, that made her very appealing. At the same time, though, I didn’t trust her. I got the feeling that she wasn’t telling us the whole truth.

‘Mr Hawthorne thinks that Jeremy might have visited that woman on his own,’ Judith Godwin said.

‘That’s completely impossible. He never goes anywhere on his own.’

Hawthorne wasn’t even slightly fazed. ‘That may be the case. But you might as well know that, just before she was murdered, Mrs Cowper sent a rather strange text message which suggested she had seen him.’ He rounded on the nanny. ‘Were the two of you here on Monday the ninth?’

Mary didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes.’

‘You didn’t accompany Mrs Godwin on her shopping trip to South Kensington?’

‘Jeremy hates shops. It’s a nightmare buying him clothes.’

‘Why don’t you talk to him?’ Judith suggested. Mary looked surprised. ‘It’s the easiest way to show them.’ Judith turned back to Hawthorne. ‘You can ask him some questions if you want to, although I would ask you to be a little more sensitive. He gets upset very easily.’

I was as surprised as the nanny but I suppose it was the easiest way to get rid of us. Hawthorne nodded and Judith took us up. The stairs creaked underneath our feet. The further up we went, the older and dowdier the house seemed to be. We reached the first floor and crossed a landing into what might once have been the master bedroom, with views out onto Roxborough Avenue. It had been given over to Jeremy, who had his bed-sitting room here. Judith knocked on the door and took us in without waiting for an answer.

‘Jeremy?’ she said. ‘There are two people who want to see you.’

‘Who are they?’ The boy had his back to us.

‘They’re just friends of mine. They want to talk to you.’

Jeremy Godwin had been sitting in front of a computer when we came in. He was playing a game – Mortal Kombat, I think. Hearing him speak, it was immediately obvious that something was wrong. His words were half formed, coming as if from the other side of a wall. He was overweight, with long black hair that he hadn’t brushed, and wore baggy jeans and a thick, shapeless sweater. The bedroom was decorated with Everton football posters and an Everton quilt on the bed, which was a double. Everything was well looked after but still seemed shabby, as if it had somehow been left behind. Jeremy came to the end of a level in his game and hit the Pause button. As he turned to face us, I saw a round face, thick lips, a wispy beard around his cheeks. The brain damage was painfully evident in brown eyes which showed no curiosity and simply didn’t connect with us. I knew he was eighteen but he looked older.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m Hawthorne. I’m a friend of your mum’s.’

‘My mum doesn’t have many friends.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ Hawthorne looked around him. ‘You’ve got a nice room, Jeremy.’

‘It’s not my room any more. We’re selling it.’

‘We’ll find somewhere just as nice for you,’ Mary said. She had brushed past us and sat down on the bed.

‘I wish we didn’t have to go.’

‘Do you want to ask him anything?’ Judith was standing by the door, anxious for us to be on our way.

‘Do you go out a lot, Jeremy?’ Hawthorne asked.

I couldn’t see any point in the question. This young man would never be able to take himself off into the centre of London. Nor did he seem to have a shred of aggression about him. The accident had taken that from him, along with the rest of his life.

‘I go out sometimes,’ Jeremy replied.

‘But not on your own,’ Mary added.

‘Sometimes,’ he contradicted her. ‘I went to see my dad.’

‘We put you in a taxi and he met you at the other end.’

‘Have you ever been to South Kensington?’ Hawthorne asked.

‘I’ve been there lots of times.’

‘He doesn’t know where it is,’ his mother said, quietly.

I couldn’t stay here any more and quietly backed away, for once taking the initiative. Hawthorne followed me out. Judith Godwin took the two of us downstairs.

‘It’s a credit to the nanny that she stayed with you,’ Hawthorne said. He sounded impressed but I knew he was digging for more information.

‘Mary was devoted to the boys and after the accident she refused to leave. I’ve been glad to have her here. It’s very important for Jeremy to have continuity.’ There was a coldness in her voice and I was aware of something being unsaid.

‘Will she stay with you when you move?’

‘We haven’t discussed it.’

We reached the front door. She opened it. ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t come back,’ she said. ‘Jeremy hates disruption and he finds strangers very difficult. I wanted you to see him so you’d understand how he is. But we have nothing to do with what happened to Diana Cowper. The police clearly don’t believe we’re involved. We really have nothing more to say.’

‘Thank you,’ Hawthorne said. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

We left. The door closed behind us.

The moment we were outside, Hawthorne took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. I knew how he felt. I was glad to be out in the open air.

‘Why didn’t you show her the letter?’ I asked.

‘What?’ He shook the match, extinguishing it.

‘I was surprised that you didn’t show her the letter that Diana Cowper received. The one you got from Andrea Kluvánek. Maybe Judith wrote it. Or her husband. She might have recognised the writing.’

He shrugged. His thoughts were elsewhere. ‘That poor little sod,’ he muttered.

‘It’s a horrible thing to have happened,’ I said. And I meant it. My two sons insist on cycling in London. They often forget to put on their helmets and I shout at them – but what can I do? They’re in their late twenties. For me, Jeremy Godwin was the embodiment of a nightmare I tried not to have.

‘I’ve got a son,’ Hawthorne said, abruptly, answering the question I’d put to him about twenty-four hours before.

‘How old is he?’

‘Eleven.’ Hawthorne was upset, his thoughts elsewhere. But before I could ask anything more, he suddenly turned on me. ‘And he doesn’t read your fucking books.’

Pinching the cigarette between his fingers, he raised it to his lips, then walked away. I followed.

As we went, something strange happened. Maybe it was some instinct or maybe a movement caught my eye but I realised that we were being watched. I turned round and looked at the house we had just left. Someone had been standing in the window of Jeremy Godwin’s room, staring down at us, but before I could see who it was, they had backed away.